Bush's Baghdad Palace

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Bush's Baghdad Palace

Postby nomo » Fri Jul 07, 2006 2:17 pm

This article can be found on the web at<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060703/howl">www.thenation.com/doc/20060703/howl</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>howl by Nicholas von Hoffman<br>Bush's Baghdad Palace<br><br>[posted online on June 20, 2006]<br><br>Among the many secrets the American government cannot keep, one of its biggest (104 acres) and most expensive ($592 million) is the American Embassy being built in Baghdad. Surrounded by fifteen-foot-thick walls, <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>almost as large as the Vatican</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> on a scale comparable to the Mall of America, to which it seems to have a certain spiritual affinity, this is no simple object to hide.<br><br>So you think the Bush Administration is planning on leaving Iraq? Read on.<br><br>The <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Chicago Tribune</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> reports, "Trucks shuttle building materials to and fro. Cranes, at least a dozen of them, punch toward the sky. Concrete structures are beginning to take form. At a time when most Iraqis are enduring blackouts of up to 22 hours a day, the site is floodlighted by night so work can continue around the clock."<br><br>It will come as less than a surprise to learn that this project was subbed out to an outfit in Kuwait. The <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Tribune </em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->says that "for security reasons, the new embassy is being built entirely by imported labor. The contractor, First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting Co., which was linked to <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>human-trafficking allegations</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> by a <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Chicago Tribune</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> investigation last year, has hired a workforce of 900 mostly Asian workers who live on the site." In a land where half the population is out of work the United States ought to win countless native hearts and minds with this labor policy.<br><br>On the other hand, the latest is that the facilities for the 8,000 people scheduled to work in the vice-regal compound will be completed on time next year. Doubtless the cooks, janitors and serving staff attending to the Americans' needs and comforts in this establishment, which is <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>said to exceed in luxury and appointments anything Saddam Hussein built for himself</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->, will not be Iraqis either.<br><br>According to Knight Ridder, "US officials here [in Baghdad] greet questions about the site with a curtness that borders on hostility. Reporters are referred to the State Department in Washington, which declined to answer questions for security reasons." Photographers attempting to get pictures of what the locals call "George W's Palace" are confined to using telephoto lenses on this, the largest construction project undertaken by Iraq's American visitors.<br><br>Nonetheless, we know much of what is going on in the place, where there will soon be twenty-one buildings, 619 apartments with very fancy digs for the big shots, restaurants, shops, gym facilities, a swimming pool, a food court, a beauty salon, a movie theater (we can't say if it's a multiplex) and, as the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Times of London</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> reports, "a swish club for evening functions." This should be ideal for announcing the various new milestones marking the trudge of the Iraqi people toward democracy and freedom.<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>USA Today</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> has learned that the "massive new embassy, being built on the banks of the Tigris River, is designed to be entirely self-sufficient and won't be dependent on Iraq's unreliable public utilities." <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Thus, there will be no reason or excuse for any of the thousands of Americans working in this space, which is about the size of eighty football fields, to share the daily life experience of an Iraqi or even come in accidental contact with one.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>"It's no secret why a luxurious embassy might be needed in Baghdad. The State Department is finding it more difficult to persuade people to staff the embassy here," writes Knight Ridder's Leila Fadel. "The post needs people with language skills and experience that are already hard to find. Americans can't bring their families here, and the kidnappings and violence relegate Americans to the embassy complex." Thus it appears that our diplomatic personnel are more like mercenaries than Doctors Without Borders. The "above and beyond the call of duty" stuff is strictly for our beleaguered soldiers.<br><br>This gigantic complex does not square with the repeated assertions by the people who run the American government that the United States will not stay in the country after Iraq becomes a stand-alone, democratic entity. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>An "embassy" in which 8,000 people labor, along with the however many thousand military personnnel necessary to defend them, is not a diplomatic outpost. It is a base. A permanent base.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>So it turns out that the plan, if that is the right word for the haphazard, faith-based, fact-free and data-scarce decision-making that has been the one constant in this adventure, is to <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>stay in Baghdad and run the country</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->. This is beyond lunacy.<br><br>There are these 8,000 Americans holed up in a private city, who do not dare to leave their fortified luxury bunker for fear of being killed or kidnapped and tortured if caught outside their fortified walls, and who are trying to run the country by giving orders to the Iraqi government, which is also operating out of the Green Zone, that vast fortified place isolated from the people of the country.<br><br>Democrats demanding an exit strategy from Iraq are routinely derided by the Bush Administration as cowards who "cut and run." But if this Embassy plan is not a form of cut and run, what is it? Instead of cutting and making a run for Kuwait, they intend to cut and run into what amounts to the world's largest bunker, a capacious rat hole where they can wait in safety until all the Iraqis have killed one another or all factions unite, march on this air-conditioned citadel and slit the throats of its irrelevant inhabitants. <p></p><i></i>
User avatar
nomo
 
Posts: 3388
Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2005 1:48 pm
Location: New York City
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Bush's Baghdad Palace

Postby xsic bastardx » Fri Jul 07, 2006 8:34 pm

<br> Great Read. Thanks Nomo <p></p><i></i>
xsic bastardx
 
Posts: 216
Joined: Fri Dec 09, 2005 5:50 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Bush's Baghdad Palace

Postby yesferatu » Sat Jul 08, 2006 12:22 am

While under construction, CIA demolition crews installed explosives within the new "embassy", so that in 2008, they can blow it up with 8,000 employees inside. Several remote controlled airliners will crash into it and then the explosives will be set off. They will hope for a body count of over 4,000 and Bush will declare war on one of Iraq's neighbors and elections will be postponed. <br><br>This is not an embassy, it's a future stage prop. <br><br><br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
yesferatu
 

cia demo crews

Postby Mentalgongfu » Sun Jul 09, 2006 5:02 pm

yesferatu, is that your own prediction or did you pull it from somewhere else? <p></p><i></i>
Mentalgongfu
 
Posts: 171
Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 9:47 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: cia demo crews

Postby yesferatu » Mon Jul 10, 2006 12:14 am

No, just a (perhaps) jaded perspective on my part. <br>I feel they can't actually believe they will be using this as an embassy, ferchrisake. <br>The announced intentions of what they claim it will be used for is some kind of joke. What kind of effin embassy needs 8000 employees? How many employees does the largest embassy currently have??<br>Now it they want to call it The Pentagon Iraq branch, that is probable. They won't tell us what it is. <br>But, I think it is meant for destruction. I do think it is probably rigged to be brought down, and was part of the construction project from conception. My hunch. <p></p><i></i>
yesferatu
 


Return to Iraq

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests